Boston Early Music Festival in partnership with The Morgan Library & Museum present

Stile Antico

Josquin: Father of the Renaissance

Ave Maria…virgo serena Josquin des Prez (ca. 1450–1521)

Kyrie from Missa Pange lingua Josquin

Vivrai je tousjours Josquin

El grillo Josquin

Inviolata, integra et casta es Maria Josquin

Gloria from Missa Pange lingua Josquin

Mille regretz Josquin

Salve regina a5 Josquin

O mors inevitabilis Hieronymus Vinders (fl. ca. 1525)

Agnus Dei I and III from Missa Pange lingua Josquin

Dum vastos Adriae fluctus Jacquet de Mantua (1483–1559)

Friday, February 26, 2021 at 8pm Livestream broadcast Filmed concert from All Saints Church, West Dulwich, London, England BEMF.org

Stile Antico Helen Ashby, Kate Ashby, Rebecca Hickey, soprano Emma Ashby, Cara Curran, Eleanor Harries, alto Andrew Griffiths, Jonathan Hanley, Benedict Hymas, tenor James Arthur, Will Dawes, Nathan Harrison, bass

This concert is organized with the cooperation of Knudsen Productions, LLC, exclusive North American artist representative of Stile Antico.

Stile Antico records for Decca.

PROGRAM NOTES

Our program tonight is devoted to the wonderful music of Josquin des Prez, marking 500 years since his death in 1521. Josquin was unquestionably a star in his own time: no lesser figure than Martin Luther praised him as “the master of the notes,” while for the theorist Glarean, “no one has more effectively expressed the passions of the soul in music…his talent is beyond description.” So what is it about Josquin that exerted such a spell on the generations that followed—and which still speaks so eloquently to us today?

Much about Josquin’s biography and career remains shadowy: it isn’t always possible to pin down where he was working, and—with a few exceptions—the chronology of his works can only be attempted on stylistic grounds. Even his full name (Josquin Lebloitte, dit “des Prez”) and birthdate (ca. 1450) were until recently the subject of some doubt. Born in what is now the far north of France, he sang as a boy (alongside the composer Jean Mouton) at Saint-Quentin. In 1477 he is listed as a singer at the court of Duke René of Anjou at Avignon; it’s possible that he was transferred from there to Paris in 1481, in which case he would have sung at the Sainte Chapelle. After that he seems to have been in the service of the Sforza family in Milan, and in 1489 he joined the choir of the Papal Chapel in Rome, singing in the Sistine Chapel until 1494 or 1495. His next move is again unclear—he may have returned to Sforza service, or worked at the French court—and we find him next briefly in the service of Duke Ercole I d’Este at Ferrara in 1503 and 1504. He then returned to his native northern France, becoming Provost of the church of Notre Dame at Condé-sur-L’Escaut, where he remained until his death on August 27, 1521.

Much clearer is that Josquin’s music was held in the highest esteem by his contemporaries. In 1502, Duke Ercole’s talent scouts wrote letters arguing both for and against his appointment in Ferrara: on the one hand, Girolamo de Sestola writes “I believe that there is neither lord nor king who will now have a better chapel than yours if Your Lordship sends for Josquin… I want to place a crown upon this chapel of ours.” On the other, Gian de Artiganova recommends the appointment of Heinrich Isaac instead: “It is true that Josquin composes better, but he composes when he wants to, and not when one wants him to, and he is asking 200 ducats in salary while Isaac will come for 120—but Your Lordship will decide.” That His Lordship decided in favor of Josquin, exorbitant salary notwithstanding, attests to his renown.

The development of music printing, just then taking wing, did much to cement Josquin’s reputation. The Venetian printer Ottaviano Petrucci placed a work by Josquin at the head of each of his first four motet anthologies; his initial volume (Motetti A, 1502) gives pride of place to Ave Maria…virgo serena, which also opens tonight’s program. Petrucci also issued Josquin’s masses in three volumes, the first of which has the distinction of being the first-ever music publication devoted to a single composer. Manuscripts and prints from Germany to Italy to Spain attest to how widely his music was distributed during the middle years of the sixteenth century. Glarean, writing in 1543, holds him the equal of Virgil; Cosimo Bartoli, in 1567, places him on a par with Michelangelo. In the years after Josquin’s death, hundreds of works were hopefully—or unscrupulously—attributed to his pen, presumably because the association would help sell copies; the German editor Georg Forster, writing in 1540, reports “an eminent man” (quite possibly Luther again) commenting archly that “now that Josquin is dead, he is putting out more works than when he was alive!”

And so to the music. Josquin’s style emerges out of what we might provocatively call a pre- Renaissance tradition: one which does not generally seek to appeal directly to our emotions via rhetoric or overt word-painting, but rather makes its effect through dazzling contrapuntal technique, and more abstract forms of structural device and symbolism. (This may be why some people find they connect more readily with the more straightforwardly rhetorical music of Victoria, Lassus, or Byrd: it seems to speak a language more familiar to the modern ear, and hence can more easily push our emotional buttons.) Josquin’s achievement was to fuse the technical and structural rigor which he inherited from the Franco-Flemish tradition (including his teacher Ockeghem) with the directness and simplicity of the music he encountered in Italy, achieving an amazing clarity and lucidity of style, of which Ave Maria…virgo serena is the quintessential example.

Josquin’s preference for short points of imitation (snatches of melody, repeated by each voice part in turn) as a means of structuring longer spans of music was hugely influential, becoming the single most important organizing principle in the music of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. No longer was it necessary to structure a work around a pre-composed cantus firmus voice, as had been the fashion for centuries (though Josquin himself often still did so); instead, each new line of text could have its own point of imitation. This innovation allowed composers to respond far more nimbly to their texts, crafting each new point to capture its expressive nuance: a hallmark of the high Renaissance style, whose power is founded above all on contrast, color, and constant sensitivity to the possibilities of word-painting, rather than on abstract structural techniques.

Josquin himself often combined both approaches, employing a large-scale structural device as well as smaller-scale imitation and contrast. The remarkable Salve regina a5 is an excellent example: one of the inner parts is entirely pre-composed, consisting exclusively of ostinato repetitions of the “Salve” motto at two different pitch levels, while the highest part is a close paraphrase of the well-known plainchant antiphon. Despite these twin constraints, Josquin manages to create a motet full of variety and color, by turns muscularly rhythmic and tenderly reflective.

If the technical ingenuity of the Salve regina is relatively clear to the listener, then the inner workings of Inviolata, integra et casta es Maria are far less obvious. This meltingly lovely motet conceals a canon at the fifth between the second and fourth voices. In the first part, the two voices sing three breves apart; in the second part the gap reduces to two breves, and in the third part, it is just one breve. The ear, however, is not drawn to this structural trickery, but rather to the gently affectionate lines of the polyphony, and in particularly to the beautiful falling melismas at the opening, seeming to clothe the figure of the Virgin in sumptuous musical robes.

Running as a thread through our program are excerpts from the celebrated Missa Pange lingua. Believed to be Josquin’s last setting of the Mass Ordinary—it is the only one not to appear in Petrucci’s volumes, placing it after 1514—it finds Josquin at his most fluent and sophisticated. The mass is based on the well-known plainsong hymn Pange lingua gloriosi with words by Thomas Aquinas (better known in English as ‘Sing, my tongue, the Savior’s glory’). Rather than treating the melody as a cantus firmus in the old-fashioned manner, Josquin mines it as an endless source of melodic inspiration. Only in the final Agnus Dei III do we hear the entire melody, placed ostentatiously in long notes at the top of the texture. The effect is curiously cathartic, as though the listener, having been “teased” throughout, is finally allowed to enjoy the hymn fully unfurled.

In addition to his music for the church, Josquin was prolific in the secular forms, and our program includes three such works. The famous El grillo (‘The Cricket’), is a light-hearted frottola—an Italian form characterized by simple textures and clarity of declamation; it probably dates from Josquin’s Milanese years. Similarly well-known is the plangent Mille regretz, a French-language chanson which became a favorite of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. Despite the fame of these works, their attribution to Josquin has been questioned; still less secure is that of Vivrai je tousjours, which appears only in one source from the 1540s. Authentic or not, this expressive chanson about frustrated love is well deserving of an audience.

Our program is completed by two works written in memory of Josquin. The first—O mors inevitabilis, by the Flemish composer Hieronymus Vinders—sets a lament for Josquin, believed to have been displayed alongside a portrait of the composer in a church in Brussels. The portrait is lost, but the famous woodcut of the composer was almost certainly derived from it. Vinders employs a wonderfully rich texture of seven low voices, two of which intone the plainsong “Requiem aeternam.”

The second memorial work is altogether more unusual: an elaborate motet by Jacquet de Mantua called Dum vastos Adriae fluctus, published in 1544. Shoe-horned into the text are references to the titles of five of Josquin’s most famous five- and six-part motets, two of which—Salve regina and Inviolata—appear in our program. Jacquet’s music quotes the most immediately recognizable features of each of these pieces at the appropriate moment, thereby producing a “medley” of some of Josquin’s most characteristic works. The implication is that these pieces would have been familiar to any self-respecting musician of the mid-sixteenth-century—in itself an indication of the stature of this fascinating composer.

—Andrew Griffiths

TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Hail Mary, full of grace, Dominus tecum, virgo serena. the Lord is with you, fair virgin. Ave cuius conceptio, solemni plena gaudio Hail to you, whose conception, full of holy joy, Caelestia, terrestria, nova replet laetitia. fills heaven and earth with new rejoicing. Ave, cuius nativitas nostra fuit solemnitas, Hail to you, whose birth we celebrated, Ut lucifer lux oriens verum solem praeveniens. like the day-star rising, foretelling the true sun. Ave pia humilitas, sine viro fecunditas, Hail, holy and humble one, fruitful without a man, Cuius annunciatio nostra fuit salvatio. you whose annunciation was our salvation. Ave vera virginitas, immaculata castitas, Hail, true virginity, spotless chastity, Cuius purificatio nostra fuit purgatio. whose purification cleansed us also. Ave, praeclara omnibus angelicis virtutibus, Hail to you who excel in all the angelic virtues, Cuius fuit assumptio nostra glorificatio. you whose assumption glorified us also. O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen. O Mother of God, remember me. Amen. Anonymous

Kyrie eleison, Lord, have mercy; Christe eleison, Christ, have mercy; Kyrie eleison. Lord, have mercy. Mass Ordinary

Vivrai je tousjours en telle paine Shall I always live in such pain Et de misere ester rempi? and be filled with misery? Si vous considerés ceste paine If you acknowledge this pain Mes desir sera accompli. my desire will be satisfied. En humilité je vous supplie: Humbly I beg you: Chantés vostre bon Plaisir. sing your pleasure. Anonymous

El grillo è buon cantore The cricket is a good singer Che tiene longo verso. He can sing very long. Dalle beve grillo canta. He sings all the time. Ma non fa come gli altri uccelli But he isn’t like the other birds. Come li han cantato un poco, If they’ve sung a little bit Van de fatto in altro loco They go somewhere else Sempre el grillo sta pur saldo, The cricket remains where he is Quando la maggior el caldo When the heat is very fierce Alhor canta sol per amore. Then he sings only for love. Anonymous

Inviolata, integra et casta es Maria: Inviolate, whole and chaste are you, Mary: Quae es effecta fulgida caeli porta. you are the shining gate of heaven. O Mater alma Christi carissima: O kind mother, dearest to Christ, Suscipe pia laudum praeconia. accept our faithful hymns of praise. Nostra ut pura pectora sint et corpora. May our souls and bodies be pure. Quae nunc flagitant devota corda et ora: To you our hearts and lips cry out: Tua per precata dulcisona: Through your prayers’ sweet sounds Nobis concedas veniam per saecula. grant us forgiveness for ever. O benigna! O Regina! O Maria! O kindly one! O Queen! O Mary! Quae sola inviolata permansisti. you alone remain inviolate. Sequence hymn for Candlemas

Gloria in excelsis Deo, Glory be to God on high, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. and on earth peace, good will towards men. Laudamus te, benedicimus te, We praise thee, we bless thee, adoramus te, glorificamus te. we worship thee, we glorify thee, Gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam. we give thanks to thee for thy great glory. Domine Deus, Rex caelestis, O Lord God, heavenly King, Deus Pater omnipotens. God the Father Almighty. Domine Fili unigenite, Iesu Christe. O Lord, the only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ; Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris. O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, Qui tollis peccata mundi, that takest away the sins of the world, miserere nobis. have mercy upon us. Qui tollis peccata mundi, Thou that takest away the sins of the world, suscipe deprecationem nostram. receive our prayer. Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, Thou that sittest at the right hand of God the Father, miserere nobis. have mercy upon us. Quoniam tu solus Sanctus. For thou only art holy; Tu solus Dominus. thou only art the Lord; Tu solus altissimus, Iesu Christe. thou only, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, Cum Sancto Spiritu, in gloria Dei Patris. art most high in the glory of God the Father. Amen. Amen. Mass Ordinary

Mille regretz de vous abandoner, A thousand regrets at leaving you et d’eslonger vostre fache amoureuse. and being parted from your loving face. J’ay si grand dueil et peine douloureuse, I have such great sadness and painful sorrow qu’on me verra brief mes jours definer. that it seems to me my days will shortly come to an end. attributed to Jean Lemaire de Belges

Salve regina, misericordiae, Hail, queen of mercy, Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, Salve! Our life, our sweetness, and our hope! Ad te clamamus, exsules filii Hevae, To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve, Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes, to thee do we send up our sighs, In hac lacrimarum valle. mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Eja ergo, Advocata nostra, Turn, then, most gracious advocate, Illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte thine eyes of mercy toward us, Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, and after this, our exile, Nobis, post hoc exilium, ostende, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Maria. O clement, O loving, O sweet Mary. Compline antiphon

O mors inevitabilis, mors amara, mors crudelis, O ineluctable death, bitter death, cruel death, Josquin des Prez dum necasti, illum nobis abstulisti when you killed Josquin des Prez, you took from us qui suam per harmoniam illustravit ecclesiam. a man who, through his music, adorned the church. Propterea tu musice, dic, requiescat in pace. And therefore, O musician, say: May he rest in peace. Anonymous Translation by Mick Swithinbank Cantus firmus: Cantus firmus: Requiem aeternam dona ei Domine, Eternal rest grant him, O Lord, et lux perpetua luceat ei. and let perpetual light shine upon him.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, miserere nobis. have mercy upon us. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, dona nobis pacem. grant us peace. Mass Ordinary

Dum vastos Adriae fluctus rabiemque furentis While Iacchus wondered at the vast waves of the gurgitis atque imis stagna agitata vadis Scyllamque Adriatic and the rage of the furious whirlpool and the et rapidas Syrtes miratur Iacchus monstraque non waters churned up from the sea-bed, and Scylla, and ullis cognita temporibus, candida pampinea the swift-moving sandbanks and monsters unknown to redemitus tempora frande, haec cecinit prisco any age, he sang this learned song, in an antique style, carmina docta sono: his white temples bound with a vine frond.

Josquini antiquos, Musae, memoremus amores, Muses, let us recount Josquin’s ancient loves, whose quorum iussa facit magni regnator Olympi aeternam commands the ruler of great Olympus executed, praeter seriem et moderamina rerum, dum stabat beyond the eternal course and governance of the world, mater miserans natumque decoris inviolata manens while the mother stood pitying and, remaining lacrimis plorabat iniquo iudicio extinctum. Salve, o inviolate, wept with graceful tears for her son, slain by sanctissima, salve Regina et tu summe Deus miserere an unjust judgment. Hail, O most holy Queen, and you, quotannis cui vitulo et certis cumulabo altaria donis. highest God, have pity, to whom each year I shall heap up the altars with a calf and regular gifts. Dixerat. Argutae referebant omnia cannae Mincius et He had spoken. The clear-voiced reeds related liquidis annuit amnis aquis. everything and the river Mincius with his clear waters nodded approval. Jacquet de Mantua Translation by Luke Pitcher

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Stile Antico is firmly established as one of the world’s most accomplished and innovative vocal ensembles. Working without a conductor, its twelve members have thrilled audiences on four continents with their fresh, vibrant and moving performances of Renaissance polyphony. Its bestselling recordings have earned accolades including the Gramophone Award for Early Music, Diapason d’Or de l’Année, Edison Klassiek Award, and Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik. The group has received three Grammy nominations, and performed live at the 60th Grammy Awards at Madison Square Garden.

Based in London, Stile Antico has appeared at many of the world’s most prestigious venues and festivals. The group enjoys a particularly close association with Wigmore Hall, and has performed at the BBC Proms, Buckingham Palace, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Cité de la Musique, Luxembourg Philharmonie, and Leipzig Gewandhaus. Stile Antico is frequently invited to appear at Europe’s leading festivals: highlights include the Antwerp, Bruges, Utrecht, and York Early Music Festivals, the Lucerne Easter Festival, and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.

Since its 2009 North American début at the Boston Early Music Festival, Stile Antico has enjoyed frequent tours to the U.S. and Canada. The group performs regularly in Boston and New York, and has appeared at the Ravinia Festival, Washington’s National Cathedral and Library of Congress, Vancouver’s Chan Centre, and in concert series spanning twenty-five U.S. states. Stile Antico has also appeared in Mexico and Colombia, and in 2018 visited East Asia for the first time, performing in Korea, Macau, and Hong Kong.

Stile Antico’s performances are often praised for their immediacy, expressive commitment, and their sensitive and imaginative response to text. These qualities arise from the group’s collaborative working style: members rehearse and perform as chamber musicians, each contributing artistically to the musical results. The group is also noted for its compelling programming, which often draws out thematic connections between works to shine new light on Renaissance music. In addition to its core repertoire, Stile Antico has premiered works by Joanna Marsh, John McCabe, Nico Muhly, Giles Swayne, and Huw Watkins. The group’s diverse range of collaborators includes Fretwork, Folger Consort, Marino Formenti, B’Rock, Rihab Azar, and Sting.

Alongside its concert and recording work, Stile Antico is passionate about sharing its repertoire and working style with the widest possible audience, and its masterclasses and workshops are much in demand. As well as leading regular courses at the Dartington International Summer School, the group has been resident at Zenobia Música, and is often invited to work alongside ensembles at universities, festivals, and early music forums. The support of the charitable Stile Antico Foundation has enabled Stile Antico to expand its work with younger people, and to offer bursaries to talented young professional singers and ensembles.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Stile Antico has thrown its energy into digital projects, producing a “virtual choir” recording of Tallis’s Spem in Alium, a music film to mark the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage, and a series of lecture-recitals, Sundays with Stile, as well as giving live-streamed concerts from Wigmore Hall and the York Early Music Festival. In early 2021 the group gives further streamed concerts for Boston Early Music Festival, Live From London, and St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and releases its first recording on the Decca Classics label, marking 500 years since the death of Josquin.

Boston Early Music Festival

The Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) is universally recognized as a leader in the field of early music. Since its founding in 1980 by leading practitioners of historical performance in the United States and abroad, BEMF has promoted early music through a variety of diverse programs and activities, including an annual concert series that brings early music’s brightest stars to the Boston and New York concert stages, and the biennial weeklong Festival and Exhibition, recognized as “the world’s leading festival of early music” (The Times, London). Through its programs BEMF has earned its place as North America’s premier presenting organization for music of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods and has secured Boston’s reputation as “America’s early music capital” (Boston Globe).

International Baroque Opera One of BEMF’s main goals is to unearth and present lesser-known Baroque operas performed by the world’s leading musicians armed with the latest information on period singing, orchestral performance, scenic design, costuming, dance, and staging. BEMF operas reproduce the Baroque’s stunning palette of sound by bringing together today’s leading operatic superstars and a wealth of instrumental talent from across the globe to one stage for historic presentations, all zestfully led from the pit by the BEMF Artistic Directors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, and creatively reimagined for the stage by BEMF Opera Director Gilbert Blin.

The twentieth biennial Boston Early Music Festival in June 2019 featured Agostino Steffani’s mesmerizing 1691 opera Orlando generoso, which saw the return of the Boston Early Music Festival Dance Company, a troupe of dancers under the guidance of BEMF Dance Director Melinda Sullivan. The twenty-first Festival, which will take place from June 6 to 13, 2021, is being redesigned due to the global pandemic. The twenty-second Festival, in June 2023, will feature Henry Desmarest’s 1694 opera Circé from a libretto by Louise-Geneviève Gillot de Saintonge.

BEMF introduced its Chamber Opera Series during its annual concert season in November 2008, with a performance of John Blow’s Venus and Adonis and Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Actéon. The series focuses on the wealth of chamber operas composed during the Baroque period, while providing an increasing number of local opera aficionados the opportunity to attend one of BEMF’s superb offerings. Subsequent annual productions include George Frideric Handel’s Acis and Galatea, Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, combined performances of Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers and La Couronne de Fleurs, Monteverdi’s Orfeo, a double bill of Pergolesi’s La serva padrona and Livietta e Tracollo, a production titled “Versailles” featuring Les Plaisirs de Versailles by Charpentier, Les Fontaines de Versailles by Michel-Richard de Lalande, and divertissements from Atys by Lully, and most recently Francesca Caccini’s Alcina, the first opera written by a woman. Acis and Galatea was revived and presented on a four-city North American Tour in early 2011, which included a performance at the American Handel Festival in Seattle, and in 2014, BEMF’s second North American Tour featured the Charpentier double bill from 2011.

BEMF has a well-established and highly successful project to record some of its groundbreaking work in the field of Baroque opera. The first three recordings in this series were all nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording, in 2005, 2007, and 2008: the 2003 Festival centerpiece Ariadne, by Johann Georg Conradi; Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Thésée; and the 2007 Festival opera, Lully’s Psyché, which was hailed by BBC Music Magazine as “superbly realized…magnificent.” In addition, the BEMF recordings of Lully’s Thésée and Psyché received Gramophone Award Nominations in the Baroque Vocal category in 2008 and 2009, respectively. BEMF’s next three recordings on the German CPO label were drawn from its Chamber Opera Series: Charpentier’s Actéon, Blow’s Venus and Adonis, and a release of Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers and La Couronne de Fleurs, which won the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording and the 2015 Echo Klassik Opera Recording of the Year (17th/18th Century Opera). Agostino Steffani’s Niobe, Regina di Tebe, featuring Philippe Jaroussky and Karina Gauvin, which was released in January 2015 on the Erato/Warner Classics label in conjunction with a seven-city, four-country European concert tour of the opera, has been nominated for a Grammy Award, was named Gramophone’s Recording of the Month for March 2015, is the 2015 Echo Klassik World Premiere Recording of the Year, and has received a 2015 Diapason d’Or de l’Année and a 2015 Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. Handel’s Acis and Galatea was released in November 2015. In 2017, while maintaining the focus on Baroque opera, BEMF expanded the recording project to include other select Baroque vocal works: a new Steffani disc, Duets of Love and Passion, was released in September 2017 in conjunction with a six-city North American tour, and a recording of Johann Sebastiani’s St. Matthew Passion was released in March 2018. Four Baroque opera releases followed in 2019 and 2020: a disc of Charpentier’s chamber operas Les Plaisirs de Versailles and Les Arts Florissants was released at the June 2019 Festival, and has been nominated for a Grammy Award; the 2013 Festival opera, Handel’s Almira, was released in late 2019, and received a Diapason d’Or. Lalande’s chamber opera Les Fontaines de Versailles was featured on a September 2020 release of the composer’s works; Christoph Graupner’s opera Antiochus und Stratonica was released in December 2020.

Celebrated Concerts Some of the most thrilling musical moments at the biennial Festival occur during one of the dozen or more concerts presented around the clock, which always include the acclaimed Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra led by Orchestra Director Robert Mealy, and which often feature unique, once-in-a-lifetime collaborations and programs by the spectacular array of talent assembled for the Festival week’s events. In 1989, BEMF established an annual concert series bringing early music’s leading soloists and ensembles to the Boston concert stage to meet the growing demand for regular world-class performances of early music’s beloved classics and newly discovered works. BEMF then expanded its concert series in 2006, when it extended its performances to New York City’s Gilder Lehrman Hall at the Morgan Library & Museum, providing “a shot in the arm for New York’s relatively modest early-music scene” (New York Times).

World-famous Exhibition The nerve center of the biennial Festival, the Exhibition is the largest event of its kind in the United States, showcasing nearly one hundred early instrument makers, music publishers, service organizations, schools and universities, and associated colleagues. In 2013, Mozart’s own violin and viola were displayed at the Exhibition, in their first-ever visit to the United States. Every other June, hundreds of professional musicians, students, and enthusiasts come from around the world to purchase instruments, restock their libraries, learn about recent musicological developments, and renew old friendships. For four days, they visit the Exhibition booths to browse, discover, and purchase, and attend the dozens of symposia, masterclasses, and demonstration recitals, all of which encourage a deeper appreciation of early music, and strengthen relationships between musicians, participants, and audiences.

Boston Early Music Festival, Inc.

Management Kathleen Fay, Executive Director Carla Chrisfield, General Manager Maria van Kalken, Assistant to the Executive Director Brian Stuart, Director of Marketing and Publicity Elizabeth Hardy, Marketing and Development Associate & Exhibition Manager Perry Emerson, Operations Manager Corinne King, Box Office and Patron Services Manager Shannon Canavin, Development Associate & Visa Specialist Andrew Sigel, Publications Editor Sue Pundt, Bookkeeper

Artistic Leadership Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, Artistic Directors Gilbert Blin, Opera Director Robert Mealy, Orchestra Director Melinda Sullivan, Lucy Graham Dance Director

Board of Directors Bernice K. Chen, Chairman David Halstead, President Brit d’Arbeloff, Vice President Lois A. Lampson, Vice President Susan L. Robinson, Vice President Adrian C. Touw, Treasurer Peter L. Faber, Clerk Michael Ellmann George L. Hardman Glenn A. KnicKrehm Miles Morgan Bettina A. Norton Lee S. Ridgway Ganesh Sundaram

Board of Overseers Diane Britton Gregory E. Bulger Robert E. Kulp, Jr. James S. Nicolson Amanda Pond Robert Strassler Donald E. Vaughan

Board of Trustees Marty Gottron & John Felton, Co-Chairs Mary Briggs Deborah Ferro Burke Mary Deissler James A. Glazier Edward B. Kellogg John Krzywicki Douglas M. Robbe Jacob Skowronek

Boston Early Music Festival 43 Thorndike Street, Suite 302, Cambridge, MA 02141-1764 Telephone: 617-661-1812 • Email: [email protected] • BEMF.org

The Morgan Library & Museum

Celebrate the intersection of art, literature, and music in engaging concerts inspired by the Morgan's collections and exhibitions. The Morgan Library & Museum houses one of the finest collections of music manuscripts in the country, featuring composers such a J.S. Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Frédéric Chopin, Claude Debussy, Gustav Mahler, Fanny Mendelssohn, W.A. Mozart, Franz Schubert, Clara Schumann, Igor Stravinsky, and Philip Glass, among many others. In addition, the collection is enhanced by extensive holdings of musician's letters and first edition scores and librettos. Explore select autographs on the Morgan's website at Music Manuscripts Online (www.themorgan.org/music).

Board of Trustees Lawrence R. Ricciardi, President Richard L. Menschel, Vice President Clement C. Moore II, Vice President George L. K. Frelinghuysen, Treasurer Thomas J. Reid, Secretary Susanna Borghese T. Kimball Brooker Karen B. Cohen Frederick J. Iseman Jerker M. Johansson Martha McGarry Miller John A. Morgan Patricia Morton Eric L. Motley Diane A. Nixon Gary W. Parr Peter Pennoyer Katharine J. Rayner Annette de la Renta Joshua W. Sommer Robert King Steel Beatrice Stern Alyce Williams Toonk

Life Trustees William R. Acquavella Rodney B. Berens Geoffrey K. Elliott Marina Kellen French Agnes Gund James R. Houghton Lawrence Hughes Herbert L. Lucas Janine Luke Charles F. Morgan Robert M. Pennoyer Cynthia Hazen Polsky Hamilton Robinson, Jr. James A. Runde James Baker Sitrick

Administration Colin B. Bailey, Director Jessica Ludwig, Deputy Director Kristina W. Stillman, Director of Finance and Administration Lauren Stakias, Director of Institutional Advancement Linden Chubin, Director of Education and Public Programs Noreen Khalid Ahmad, Director of Communications and Marketing

Current and Upcoming Exhibitions

Poetry and Patronage: The Laubespine-Villeroy Library Rediscovered Through May 16, 2021

David Hockney: Drawing from Life Through May 30, 2021

Conversations in Drawing: Seven Centuries of Art from the Gray Collection Through June 6, 2021

Architecture, Theater, and Fantasy: Bibiena Drawings from the Jules Fisher Collection May 28, 2021 through September 12, 2021

The concert program is made possible by assistance from the Joan and Alan Ades-Taub Family Foundation, the Esther Simon Charitable Trust, Miles Morgan, the Witherspoon Fund of the New York Community Trust, the Theodore H. Barth Foundation, and the following endowed funds: the Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky Fund for Concerts and Lectures; and the Celia Ascher Endowment Fund.

The Morgan’s education programs are generously supported by Marina Kellen French and the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation, the Great Circle Foundation, the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc., Con Edison, MetLife Foundation, the C. Jay Moorhead Foundation, the Filomen M. D’Agostino Foundation, The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation and by the following endowed funds: The Alice Tully Fund for Art and Music; the William Randolph Hearst Fund for Educational Programs; the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Fund for Education and Technology; and the Herbert and Ann Lucas Fund.

The programs of the Morgan Library & Museum are made possible with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

The Morgan Library & Museum 225 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016 (212)-685-0008 www.themorgan.org